Abstract

This article gives a comparative examination of poverty reduction strategies in the
United States and South Africa. Three questions frame the discussion: 1) Are
individual legally enforceable entitlements to the benefits of social and economic
rights, particularly social assistance benefits, an important or even necessary tool in
fighting poverty and realising social and economic rights? 2) Should anti-poverty
policy privilege wage work and family contributions? 3) In light of economic
globalisation, what problems are associated with viewing poverty-reduction strategies,
particularly social welfare programmes, within a framework of nation-states and their
subdivisions? Cast in the light of these questions, modern US poverty and social
assistance policy reveal an abundance of misconceptions and biases which, over time,
have reinforced opposition in the US to economic redistribution and the guarantee of
minimally adequate living conditions for the poor. Regrettably, echoes of these
failings in the US approach can be detected in the contemporary South African debate
and in some recent South African anti-poverty initiatives.